


The Mandalorian Wars

by sarasara



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:48:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarasara/pseuds/sarasara
Summary: A retelling of the Mandalorian Wars, from Mandalore to Korriban and Rakata Prime, featuring a large cast of characters from Knights of the Old Republic.





	1. The New Mandalore

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely a passion project and I have no expectation of wide readership. Those who do read this are appreciated and your comments, compliments and criticism both, your following, or even your anonymous kudos, are all appreciated in turn.

Down in these jungles the air is oppressive. These jungles are humidity and darkness, its air itself hostile to the skin of the civilised races which here do not belong. Such places have always existed and such places will exist this way forever. Dark pockets of untouched land and sea and shadowy corners of galaxies where even the mightiest do not tread and unknown beasts lurk waiting.

It was here that Mandalore met his end and here that Mandalore was reborn. Here on Dxun, the jungle moon of Onderon, still untamed and wild, where Mandalore the Indomitable and his forces were beaten back from victory on Onderon, driven back to the moon where they were lost amongst the tangled trees which surrounded them on all sides and watchful eyes of beasts in the murky darkness beyond. The jungle consumed the moon almost whole. In the patches of clear sky where some of Mandalore’s forces escaped the jungle’s grip giant reptavians swooped down on them and tore them apart, and those of them that did not escape wandered in the shadows until they were lost.

The strongest and the bravest of the followers of Mandalore set out into the jungle to find their leader. The rain fell in torrents on them and the ground became mud which sucked their feet down into the earth. They hacked their way through the undergrowth, towards the last of the failing signal of their lost leader. They marched through the mud and the twisted masses of vines and giant roots of trees which rivalled their own ships in size, with canopies that blotted out what sunlight filtered through the heavy stormclouds. They were set upon by the horned and tusked bomas, which despite their bulk leaped from the shade of the trees in ambush of those of the group who trailed behind or strayed too far away, and with their powerful jaws ripped limb from body. The Mandalorians would not back down from a fight, and fought back until the bomas were slain or until they retreated, but one by one their numbers began to dwindle, and there were fiercer things yet which lived in those jungles.

The signal had led them to a small hill before it had failed completely. From the top of the hill there was a view of the surrounding jungle, but now they were far enough in that they could not see where it ended. They fanned out in pairs and searched the immediate area and converged again at a new point, where they did the same again.

Two of them set off eastward, where the ground sloped downwards into a muddy pit and the ground was uneven. Two accomplished warriors, both of them; one human, a disgraced mercenary in another life, a vicious man and the smaller of the two; the other a large Taung, descendant of the old Mandalorians, the progenitors of all that was Mandalorian. The Taung was born into this culture, from birth raised to be a warrior, raised for battle and battle alone. Under his armour his skin was heavily scarred with all manner of wounds, but these were not scars of weakness but of strength. He was an imposing figure. Not the largest of the Taung left among the Mandalorians. Yet in the way he carried himself there was an aura of power and self-assuredness he exuded that comes only from the knowledge of one’s own worth proven by hard-won victories. He had none of the heavy movement of one his size, but had the agility of one much lighter as he navigated through the jungle, a quick, nimble lope, and kept a keen awareness of all that was around him. He and the human spread out, though still within sight and earshot of each other, and they searched the ground for any signs at all of the defeated brothers and sisters of Mandalore.

In a deceptive patch of the earth the wet ground gave way without warning to mud, which sucked at the Taung’s feet and brought him down to his lower shins. He looked around. He saw no eyes on him, and then, satisfied, he trudged onwards, moving quickly to escape the mud. He took two long strides before his foot came down on something hard. He paused and lifted his foot back. One more glance to his surroundings. He aimed his blaster rifle downwards at the mud. He pressed his foot down again, and held it down on the hard object. He moved his foot around, and he could discern some familiar shape to it. Armour. He moved his foot to the side, and there was the round shape of a skull. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and reached down to grab at an arm, and hauled up from the mud a man.

The man wore badly damaged armour, split and cracked in multiple places, and his helmet was gone. Another human. The Taung took the human over his other shoulder and strode to the nearest bank to set him down out of the mud. He wiped the mud off the man’s face and paid silent respects to his fellow warrior. He turned to see where his partner had gone, but his eyes caught on something else.

There, just beyond the thick mud from which he had drawn this man, there was a groove in the ground, where it sloped up towards the trees again. The kind that might be made from someone pulling themselves up. He straightened himself up and left the body where it was for now, and he moved around the bank carefully, avoiding the mud, until he came to where the groove ended. There were tracks ahead. These tracks were in the shape of boots like his own. He followed them, and he signalled to his partner to follow.

There where the tracks ended lay the body of a giant beast. Dark red and with muscles like rocks, and on its back large protrusions of armour like small mountains. It lay on its side, mouth open, baring its sharp teeth, its tongue lolling loosely just shy of the ground. A wound in its belly stained the ground beneath it with blood. A zakkeg.

The Taung approached first, carefully. He examined the zakkeg for any signs of breath. When he saw none, he waited. Then he moved closer. In the jungles of Dxun the zakkeg was rightful ruler. Even in places vicious and primal like these, when the zakkeg died scavengers would not approach for many hours until its death was certain. He moved around the zakkeg, towards its head, and he levelled his rifle as he went.

There on the other side of the zakkeg’s head was where he lay. Mandalore the Indomitable.

The old Mandalore lay sprawled in the rain. His blood stained his armour. Where the zakkeg had bit him his armour was shattered with the force of the impact. He lay with his legs twisted an unnatural angle, and his hands clutched his mythosaur axe. The blade of the axe was still half drenched in the blood of the zakkeg though the falling rain was slowly washing it clean. They were two mighty rulers, once powerful in life, the stuff of legends but now no longer what they were, now broken and gone, but they both had met their ends in the only fitting way to go for ones so honourable. There was no shame in such a death. The warrior’s death. The Taung knelt beside Mandalore, and placed his hand on Mandalore’s chest. He lowered his head. His partner joined him silently. For just a moment all was still but the rain.

And the Taung raised his hands to Mandalore’s head, and he took the darkly golden mask from his head. And when he looked at the mask, he felt something in him that he had not felt before and he would never feel again, a feeling of deep purpose and duty, pride and glory, a sacred feeling which is as old as these jungles and maybe older still, that strikes only a rare individual each generation and which cannot be refused.

He raised the mask of Mandalore above his head. He put it on.

And so was born Mandalore the Ultimate.

 


	2. Aftermath

Among all those gathered in the Royal Palace on Onderon, King Oron Kira stood taller than all but the few Wookies. He was a man of formidable presence, a man born not a royal but a beast rider, more used to the back of a drexl warbeast than the throne. A man more used to the tactics of war than the subtle battles of intrigue and court politics. His wife was Queen Galia, a tall woman herself, and always close by his side, who had fallen deeply in love with him when she was a young and beautiful princess, who eloped with the then beast rider so that they could marry. They were the hosts of the evening. In the cool air of Iziz, they stood on the palace balcony watching the fireworks decorate the sky.

‘I love you,’ said Queen Galia. ‘And so do they.’ She sipped the last sip of her drink and held out her hand for someone to take it. She slipped her hands around her husband’s arm and took his hand, and she leaned her head lightly on his shoulder, in that soft spot just beneath the bone. He squeezed her hand gently.

A man to their right caught the sight, and turned to leave to give them space. The king glanced his way, and the two of them caught each others’ eyes briefly.

‘Oh, please, stay,’ said the king, and he turned to extend his hand to the man. The queen straightened up, and brushed her hair back from where it had fallen in her face.

‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt,’ said the man.

‘Admiral, you’re the last person here who should feel out of place. I extend my most sincere gratitude to all the aid we received from the Republic, but I owe an even more special thanks to you. Without you, we might well have lost Onderon.’ The king kept his hand extended.

The admiral took it. ‘I’m honoured, Your Majesties.’

‘Your reputation is thoroughly earned,’ said the queen.

Admiral Vanicus politely bowed his head to the queen. The king and queen engaged him with pleasantries for a while, the reticent admiral offering only a few words back to them, a military man out of his natural element. Although the king had taken to life in the royal sphere with the help of his wife, the admiral was a man who until the day he died never liked the world of politics, and a part of him felt more at ease being shot at than being in the palace, celebration or not.

But Queen Galia was born royalty, and if there is one skill common to all successful men and women of aristocracy or royal blood, all across the galaxy, it is social perception. She patted the king on his shoulder, and she interrupted him. ‘Darling, I think the best way we can show our thanks to the admiral is to let him be. Remember how uncomfortable these situations used to make you?’ She smiled to Admiral Vanicus and began to lead her husband back inside.

‘It wasn’t my intention to offend you, Your Majesty,’ said the admiral.

The queen waved her hand. ‘You’ve done nothing of the sort. If it weren’t for the actions of you and my dear husband, we know all too well what would have become of our home. You have nothing to apologise for. We can sleep in peace thanks to you.’

The queen and king walked away together. Admiral Vanicus turned to look out at Iziz. He turned back as the royal couple were just at the doorway back inside.

‘Your Majesties,’ he said, for the first time that night hesitation colouring his strong voice, ‘perhaps we should discuss that.’ There was nobody else on the balcony by now; the others had left, most of them to grab more of the food and drink from the feast inside.

‘Discuss what?’

The admiral paused before he spoke, and he chose his words with deliberation. ‘I know how I’ve been portrayed. A war hero. And I know how they are going to speak of me now. Celebrating the mercy we showed to the Mandalorians. Allowing surrender to an enemy who would have never done the same to us, who would have committed to our utter destruction.’ He took a few slow breaths. For the first time that night he hesitated as he continued. ‘I have been wondering if perhaps I made the wrong decision.’

‘What are you saying?’ said King Oron.

‘I’m saying that we aren’t facing an enemy like we’ve faced before. We offer surrender as a way to encourage an enemy to end the conflict, with minimal losses for both sides.’ Although his eyes held the gaze of the king when he spoke to him, every now and then they would slip down, only for a moment, before they met the king’s eyes again, as though something in him still wished to deny his own thoughts. ‘The Mandalorians – the Mandalorians are the sole exception I have encountered in my years of duty. We are not fighting an enemy which follows conventional logic. They are a warrior culture. In their minds, they exist only for war. Defeat is no deterrent.’

‘Defeat is certainly a deterrent if they don’t have the ability to continue the fight,’ said the king.

‘They may not have that today, but they will do their utmost to return to war. They will continue their war. If not now, then later, and if not with you, then with someone else. They will find a new war, as long as they are alive to do so.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ asked the queen.

‘I’m suggesting we do what is necessary while we can,’ said the admiral.

‘And why are you mentioning this to us?’

‘Because such a proposal will need support. A sacrifice in order to save countless lives, which outsiders may not understand.’

There was a moment of silence. The queen lowered her head, and raised it again, then she spoke. ‘We have nothing but the highest respect and gratitude for you, but you will not find support here. My mother, in the last years of her life, was a cruel ruler, and a cruel woman. I promised myself and the people of Onderon that we will not be.’

‘Sometimes cruel choices are for the best.’

‘And yet we overcame her cruelty without cruelty. We did not sink to her level. And we and Onderon are the better for it.’ Her face had a hint of sadness in it. ‘If we must become like our enemies to defeat them, what’s the point?’

The admiral nodded. ‘Forgive me, Your Majesties. I should leave you to the rest of your evening. Thank you for your hospitality and generosity.’

He took his leave of the king and queen and left the palace balcony. With all his heart he hoped that the queen was right.

* * *

On Dxun it had been raining for three days and the rain would fall for seven days more in a heavy downpour which flooded the earth and veiled the distant treetops and mountains in a grey haze. There was a clearing in the jungle where a few buildings still stood in disrepair with Basilisk war droids at their side, half of them broken. The mud squelched under the boots of the Mandalorians who gathered at the centre of the clearing. There in the centre of the circle they formed stood the new Mandalore. His armour was dirtied with the mud and the broken bodies of challengers, human, Taung, and Twi-lek, formed the inmost ring of the circle. And all the circle got down on their knees and chanted hail to Mandalore who stood alone at their focus like a golden idol.

That very night by his orders the Mandalorians on Dxun did not sleep and they worked in the rain and the thunder all through the night. They made crude shelters to cover the ruined Basilisks from the water and they worked restlessly to repair them. Those of them who had brought shame to themselves in the war were challenged by the young and ambitious who beat them until they gasped their surrender, and before the sun was up behind the rainclouds there was a new command on Dxun.

Those who had survived the war were few in number. They were poorly equipped. Many of their ships were destroyed, and their supplies would not last them much longer. Over the next few nights roving packs of maalraas grew bolder and ventured from the jungle into the clearing to attack tired and unwary Mandalorians in the darkness and further reduced their number by five.

Even as their situation was at its most hopeless Mandalore held an invincible will. He welcomed crushing defeat as a new challenge for them to prove their worth. He praised the maalraas hunting them in the night for ridding the camp of the weak and the lazy who had brought defeat and disgrace to their brethren, before he led a party into the jungle to kill every predator they saw and stake the heads of each one around the camp as both trophy and warning. The Mandalorians took to this like a sport where each would measure their worth against the other in the blood and bones of vicious predators and soon they made the jungle near the camp an area where all but the most dangerous creatures feared to go. The Basilisks which had been broken and disembowelled of their circuitry were ready for war once more by the fifth day of the new Mandalore’s reign. And like the Basilisks the warriors on Dxun too became new again. Though days before they had been defeated and though they were outnumbered beyond all reason for hope, they now worked tirelessly with a strange faith none of them quite understood, the kind of unshakable faith that what they were doing had purpose even in the face of impossible odds. None of them understood their purpose less than Mandalore himself yet none felt it with more conviction.

Neither did Mandalore explain himself to the rest of the leadership on Dxun. They were for the most part the young and eager who had seized opportunity but he showed little interest in their thoughts. Only two of the old generals from the last war remained. The first was tired and the spark of inspiration in him had long since died, and all knew he was not long for Mandalore’s side.

The second was a strange figure among the Mandalorians. His name was Fett and he was human, a brown-skinned man and tall, the tallest of the humans on Dxun, his head reaching just above shoulder of Mandalore, and though he had been a general under Mandalore the Indomitable before his death he was one of the least favoured and least influential of his peers and his origins were unknown. Yet for all his lowness of rank among the former generals he alone went unchallenged by his inferiors after their defeat. Although they spoke little of him it was as if an unvoiced reputation had formed around him.

The new Mandalore knew little more of him than did the others. Rivals and friends he had none. Neither had he been a challenger for the right to be called Mandalore. He spoke little, but often Mandalore did see him observing from a distance with sharpness of a quiet intelligence in his eyes. And so Mandalore did observe Fett in turn, and he began to notice how those who knew Fett moved to follow his orders with ever so slightly more polish and speed than those who had served under the other generals, and he began to notice how when Fett led the hunts into the jungles they killed more and they killed faster. Why Fett had been the unfavoured general he did not know and Fett never did tell him directly, but in this man and this man alone of all the others whom he led on Dxun he felt the true spirit of the Mandalorians.

And as the jungle compound on Dxun grew he came to listen to the advice of Fett more. In time they both came to see something in the other worthy of deep respect. And in Cassus Fett Mandalore found the solution to the first of his problems. Their numbers were few, and with so few of them they could not survive another war.

So Mandalore sent Cassus Fett his closest advisor out to seek all that remained of the old Mandalorians. But when he returned he had found something new.

 


	3. The Neo-Crusaders

Many years came to pass. And in those years the Mandalorian heard and saw many things. He heard of the renewal of the Jedi Order on Coruscant, after the destruction of the old library on Ossus. He heard of the reconstruction of the Republic worlds of the Inner and Outer Rim, and he heard of peace and prosperity in the Republic. He ventured deep into all manner of worlds, from the jungles of Dxun to the bazaars of Tirahnn and the ecumenopolis of Coruscant, glory of the galaxy. He sought out all the lost Mandalorians scattered like stardust across the galaxy and spread the call of the new Mandalore. And slowly their numbers grew.

And at last Cassus Fett returned home.

The planet Mandalore was still as it had been for ten thousand years. The surface of the planet was blue with deep waters and green with the thick canopies of the veshok trees and white with salt deserts and the peaks of mountains which rose into view as his ship descended into the lower atmosphere.

They called themselves the Neo-Crusaders. They alone did not hear the call of Mandalore. Outside the city of Keldabe they had created a new village where they lived alone and independent. They lived by the Keldabe river in a valley under a mountain and had tamed the forests around them.

The ramp lowered from Fett’s ship and four figures emerged, Fett himself and three of his own soldiers who had served him for many years now. Around them already stood six of the villagers. Cassus surveyed them with a glance.

How strange they were. Identical, every one of them. They wore armour of the same design, down to the helmets, which mirrored the design of Mandalore’s own mask. They stood rigid, fixed to their posts with their blaster rifles trained on Fett. Their stances were strong. Well-trained, each of them.

‘I come from Lord Mandalore,’ said Fett.

The villagers closed in on them in strict formation, and led them into the village.

In the village there were more of them, all clad in the same armour, not a variation save colour and weaponry among them, right from the very youngest of them who had passed their trials. Fett saw to his right a small hangar where mechanics worked on fighters, and to his left rows of Basilisks, and in the still air he caught the distant smell of mined beskar. Though the village was not large, it had an order neither Fett nor any other of the Mandalorians had seen among their own. These people, although they appeared as Mandalorians in their stature, their armour and their village was as alien to them as if they had been gazing into a bizarre mirror. The scene of the village belonged to some other planet in some other star system, some world in the Inner Rim where the people were diligent and lived on trade, yet here it lay on the planet of nomads who knew no purpose but war. The people worked with purpose, and they worked with the skill of those devoted to a profession rather than battle. The village was divided by sections; where the beskar smiths worked the armour and weaponry was crafted nearby, and the mechanics had their small residences near the hangars where the ships were, and there were half-constructed cannons and engines under shelters outside their homes. Those who worked the land for food were over on another side of the village, and they organised their products of their hunting and gathering into small markets in another section of the village. Such detail in organisation was not the way of the Mandalorians, and Fett well understood why they lived outside Keldabe as strangers in their own home planet.

Ahead of him was his destination. A great white dome looming over the modest buildings which ringed it. In the dome was the heart of the village, a chieftain’s quarters, in the centre of which was a small throne, and by the throne stood a woman. Idly she stood, in expectation of her visitors, with her helmet under her arm, her face calm and composed, with high regal cheekbones and expression stern. Black hair ran to her shoulders, brushed back from her face. She watched him approach with impassive eyes and pale lips which did not hasten to speak.

There were guards in the corners of the room, and the guards which had escorted Fett and his crew remained not far from their side, rifles at ease but alert.

‘You did not answer the call of Mandalore,’ said Cassus.

‘I did not,’ said the woman.

‘Are you a Mandalorian?’ said Cassus.

‘Are you?’ said the woman.

Cassus stared at the woman. ‘Mandalore grows stronger by the day as we ready for war. Mandalore will not have mercy for those who betray our cause.’

The woman sneered at him. She did not move from her high perch beside her chieftain’s throne. ‘Mandalore grows weaker by the day,’ she said. ‘You and your Mandalore gather the last of the old Crusade for one last battle and think that this time will be different? The Republic is the one who grows stronger. Their navy is stronger now than the last time we faced it and the last time we faced it we were crushed. Lead your own forces on to death if you must, but don’t expect us to be so stupid as to follow you.’

‘Your unwillingness to fight is unbecoming of a Mandalorian chieftain,’ said Fett.

‘When you are all dead in battle, General Fett,’ tartly said the woman, ‘we will be the ones who decide what should and should not be Mandalorian.’

‘I had expected more of an Ordo,’ he said with distaste in his voice. ‘Your brother’s blood burns for battle.’

‘I had expected more of one so close to the new Mandalore. Or are you just another of those generals who led us to defeat and dishonour in the last war?’ Ordo stepped down from the slight pedestal where her throne was raised off the ground and walked towards him. Her face bore disappointment though her face was still hard. ‘Did you learn nothing from your failures? They had told me you had a certain reputation, even among the most vicious thugs on Dxun. I had thought if there was hope of things being different, someone understanding, that it might be you. That this Mandalore, who we’ve heard so much about, would see where all the others have failed.’ She was close enough to him now that he could see the tiny scars which crossed her face. ‘It was a failure not of battle, but of organisation. Of everything else in the Mandalorian spirit. What good is discipline if we leave it behind after battle?’

Cassus stood silently and listened. A man of few words was he, who listened to all and spoke to few. Though his hard face did not show it now he recognised something in the Ordo woman worthy of high esteem and he listened and thought on each word she spoke.

‘This is the future,’ she said to him. ‘Learn from the past. Do not let it die. Use defeat as an opportunity for greater strength. Renewal, and change. That is how we will win the war with the Republic. That is how we will return Mandalore to greatness once more.’ She stared at him, her cold grey eyes into his, dark brown yet somehow colder still.

She turned and walked back to her throne. ‘You have my answer,’ she said. ‘If you are wise enough to accept it, then General Yulja Ordo and the Neo-Crusaders will be waiting for you when you return.’

* * *

On board his Kandosii Dreadnought Mandalore’s deep voice echoed throughout his chambers hollow and shadowed. ‘Let them be tested as all Mandalorians are,’ said he to the projection behind him. His voice had become something other than what it was so many years ago when he had taken the mask of Mandalore from the Dxun jungle. Strong, as it had been before, yet now distant, as if his own voice were an echo of some other unknowable voice occulted deep within his brain.

‘It will be done, Lord Mandalore,’ said the voice of Fett. ‘The preparations for Althir are nearly complete. Althir will offer an ideal chance for these so-called Neo-Crusaders to prove their strength. And to show what they can do with an industrial planet after the conquest. We shall know soon enough what they are worth.’

‘Lord Mandalore,’ said the voice of another general. ‘The Mandalorian forces have no need for this. We are warriors. We have never tended to villages, or run factories. We take what is ours from those too weak to hold on to it. Encouraging this sort of culture in our ranks will be nothing more than an infection which will rot us from within.’

‘I must concur with General Fett,’ said a third voice, of a Zeltron man, from whose belt hung a strange medical tool. His hair had lost its colour and all but faded from his head, and though by the sculpture of his bones he must have been handsome once his very skin seemed twisted by scorn. ‘Their industrious nature is likely to prove advantageous.’

The doctor, who was known as Demagol, briefly looked at Cassus with sneering eyes, which Cassus did not meet.

‘You are precisely the sort of infection he means,’ came another voice. ‘And one who would do well to leave strategy to the strategists.’

Mandalore remained silent and did not turn to face the conference of advisors. They saw only the back of the golden mask upon his head and the long mantle dark ochre which flowed down to his boots. ‘Imagine,’ he said, his voice low as if speaking to himself and faintly warped through the mask. ‘Imagine. The industrial worlds and all their factories under the banner of Mandalore. Machines to make war and machines to make the machines.’ Again there was silence in the chambers.

‘Give Commander Yulja Ordo my terms,’ at last said Mandalore. ‘We shall see if she earns the rank of general.’ He turned to his generals. ‘I have faith your reputation will not disappoint me,’ he said.

The transmission ended, and the chambers returned to darkness, and silence but for the voiceless malignancy of violent intent.


	4. Atris

Those tall and proud spires drew the eye past the sleepless lights of the skyscrapers to the stately Jedi Temple in the heart of Coruscant. For only a few short decades had it stood. After the destruction of the Great Library of Ossus by the Dark Lord Exar Kun the Order had taken what they could salvage to the new archives on Coruscant, and it had become the new place of convocation for the High Council. The new archives were a small chamber a few floors above the main entrance of the temple. Only a modest room, with a protected subchamber where ancient tablets and holocrons were stored.

One of the few to whom care of these ancient tablets was entrusted was the Jedi Master Atris. One of the youngest members of the Jedi Council, and also one of the most influential. Already she had led the restoration of the old ways of the Jedi from the writings of the Teyan Apologia. After the reformations of Atris, no longer would the Jedi train those too old, who had already too much emotional turmoil in them, and no longer would the master take multiple apprentices. Neither would a Jedi fall in love. For who had not known love to be as destructive and cruel as hatred.

Many a student would find Master Atris on her own in the archives when she was in the temple on Coruscant. They would come to her, both young Padawans and old Knights, when they had questions of the history of the Jedi and she would answer all with patience and wisdom, and they came to know Master Atris as a patient and wise woman. Never did she take an apprentice of her own. This was not her. Yet many learned from Master Atris in ways both large and small. When she was not to be found in the temple and she was away on a mission in another star system she had a reputation too, for despite her many years of training with the lightsaber hers was one of the least touched of all those in the Jedi Order.

It was for a holocron that Atris the young Jedi historian had visited the Enclave on Dantooine. Holocrons were things of such power that few in the Order were ever charged with their safe handling and this was never truer than when the holocron was forged by the Sith. The holocron had been recovered by the Jedi Master Arren Kae, another historian in the Enclave, during a journey to the Empress Teta system. Master Kae was a woman reputed for her difficulty, and Atris was forced to get the Council involved before Kae assented to relinquish the holocron into the possession of the Coruscant temple archives.

Like all Sith holocrons Atris had seen, it was pyramidal in shape. It appeared black on the inside at first, but when she turned it in her hand and the light fell on it from a new angle it glimmered darkly crimson in its interior. Inscriptions ran around the edges of the pyramid in the ancient language of the Sith. Though she could not read the language she stared at the inscriptions and she traced her fingers over the indentations and imagined what nature of secrets she held in her palm. She thought of all the stories of the fallen Jedi and the Sith of eras now long gone and all their horrible knowledge.

Many of the Jedi past and present had thought that artifacts such as these should be destroyed. Such knowledge did not bring anything good to this world, they said, and had only ever corrupted good Jedi. If the matter had been left to Atris, she would have destroyed the holocron long before she even left Dantooine. But there were many who thought that such knowledge was valuable in understanding how to destroy the Sith. And there were others still who would have the Jedi study even Sith knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself.

Master Kae was one. If not for Atris, Kae would have been the most well-known of the Jedi historians. Strong with the Force was she, a skilled warrior too, and in her youth she was beautiful. Now time had begun to show at the corner of her sharp eyes, and small silver streams ran through her hair, but much remained of her former beauty. Though she was a woman of great knowledge and strength, unlike Atris, it was rare that a student did approach Master Kae. The Padawans on Dantooine knew her to be a harsh and difficult master and few liked her.

Atris knew that Arren would have already studied the contents of the Sith holocron herself. It was a rare thing for a Jedi to be so keenly knowledgeable about the Sith, and it went counter to everything Atris among many others knew to be right. Yet still Atris would be the first among the Jedi to tell of how wise Master Kae was. Despite her disagreement with her methods and her inability to fully understand Master Kae, Atris had more faith in her than any but her most exceptional apprentices.

It was the duty of any good historian not only to have knowledge, but to decide as to its value. Lesser minds and weaker wills must be protected against destructive knowledge. This was as Atris saw it. But Kae was a wise woman, and Atris had learned much from her. Atris would not be so arrogant as to pass judgement on her practices when they had produced such a fine Jedi.

She stowed the holocron away in her robes before another Jedi caught sight of it. Even so, the perceptive Jedi who passed her white-robed figure in the halls of the Enclave felt a touch of darkness in the Force as they walked on by. Atris left the building and stepped into the cool evening air outside. The gentle breeze brushed her white hair and stroked her face. Atris walked through the gardens where the plants grew richly like a jungle made small. She followed the path to the end of the gardens, where she could see the sun about to set. Why she had come this way she did not know. She had let her feet lead her where they may. Even in the most trivial of ways sometimes the Force leads us to things we did not think we were looking for. That evening the Force brought Atris back to an old friend.

 

* * *

 

Meetra was the first of the new and the last of the old. The first among the new Padawans, the first trained for the new Jedi Order, and the last Jedi to be trained by the masters of the old ways. Hers was the generation of change. Shaped by the failures of the old ways, which had seen revolution and war as even the very greatest of the Jedi fell into darkness and cast shadows which would stretch across the galaxy for thousands of years yet to come.

She learned to feel the Force in her and in all things, learned to forge and wield a lightsaber. She found friends in her fellow Padawans and Knights alike, and she found a master in Kavar, a Jedi Knight equal parts bold and measured, returned from the wars against the Krath but who frequently ventured out again with her at his side, and at that young age he was the kind of Jedi she still hoped that she would someday become.

In the fields of Dantooine the grass grew tall up to Meetra’s chest. The twilight hour was near at hand. The sun’s golden dome flattened against the horizon. The majestic fields swayed in the whispering wind and they were cast a noble bronze in the soft light of the sunset. Meetra went up to a small hill and sat. She gazed at the scenery for a time and then she closed her eyes.

Meditation was different for every Jedi. To meditate is in essence to feel. Meetra felt the weight of her body pressing down on the earth, and the earth under her body. She felt each slow breath fill her lungs and leave her again. Her mind afloat in a river of her thoughts, she let the water pass her by without memory or concern. All her world in a single moment. In that moment sometimes she was not bound by her self, but she was the wind which ran across the fields all the way to the setting sun, she was the grassland all around her and she was the family of brith who flew with silent grace through the evening skies, and she felt the Force flow through her and into the world around her, and the world flowing back into her until they were one and all. And sometimes she was nothing. Sometimes she felt so deep within herself that she felt no connection at all. Sometimes she felt only an emptiness. No more.

That evening she felt the footsteps long before she heard their slow tread up the hill to her, and she could feel the presence like a blind woman feels a face under her fingers. Emotions and intentions like a silhouette in the light of her mind.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting,’ said the voice.

‘Master Atris,’ said Meetra. ‘Not at all.’

‘Meditating again. If only more Padawans were as diligent as you are,’ said Jedi Master Atris as she came to stand by Meetra’s side.

Meetra kept her eyes closed and hummed quietly in thought. ‘Hm. You’ve come – to ask me something? Is that right?’

Atris smiled. ‘No, not quite. Although that is perceptive of you.’

‘Hm? What do you mean?’

How strange it was, thought Atris, to hear a Padawan so young so able to see her like few could. Though she was smart for her age, the girl was still little more than a child, and by now Atris was past the last of her youth, old enough now that were she not a Jedi she would be nearly old enough to be Meetra's mother, yet they spoke so easily as friends and equals. She sat on the hill beside Meetra. ‘I felt the compulsion to wander through the meditation gardens, and then I saw you. Perhaps the Force wanted me to see you again. It has been a while, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Meetra. ‘What brought you all this way to Dantooine?’

‘Council business,’ said Atris. She had thought to curtly end her reply there, but she knew that a Padawan of Meetra’s talent would probably be able to sense the disturbance in the Force around her. ‘Retrieval of a dark artifact,’ she added. ‘I trust you can keep a secret. We don’t need to rouse more curiosity in such things than is strictly necessary.’

Meetra opened her eyes, and Atris thought she saw a flicker of interest sparking in them. Her eyes were bright and full of youth. And in Jedi of that adolescent age that Meetra was, everything in them craves excitement and they find it in anything dangerous. Meetra composed herself. ‘Of course,’ she said to Atris. ‘Actually, I’d noticed a change in the Force since you came. It made meditation much harder.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Atris. ‘I didn’t even think of how much I must be disturbing your efforts at peaceful meditation.’

‘No, it’s nothing,’ said Meetra. ‘Opportunities to see you are a lot rarer than opportunities to meditate, anyway. Besides, I think I can feel around it. It just takes some getting used to, that’s all.’

‘Hm, you are becoming a talented Jedi. Most Padawans find the influence of the dark side a very challenging thing to overcome.’

‘I still have you to thank for that. I used to have a lot of trouble with meditation until you helped me, if you still remember.’

‘Of course I still remember.’ Of course she did. She had met Meetra struggling to focus herself in the meditative gardens on Dantooine many years ago. She had sensed something different in Meetra, in her connection to the Force, although she could not explain exactly how it was different then nor could she now. There was something in the way the girl felt somehow out of place that made Atris feel drawn to her. Sometimes when she thought of Meetra she wished even if only for a moment that she had done things differently. But now she was a Jedi Master now, and there was no place for such thoughts in her head.

And as the evening turned to dusk and dusk turned to night they talked as old friends do, with no care for time passing them by, and when they had told each other of all that they had done since they had seen each other last, they sat in silence and meditated together in the cool night air, two friends, one a novitiate at the beginning of her training and the other a master at the end of a long and hard road and both together as unknown equals at the precipice of a brand new world.


End file.
